Acrobatics

Major complaints:
1) Its basically just extra evasion, on a different roll
2) 1 shots still exist due to no armor, no EShield(and to the whole evasion mechanic allowing hits in via smoothing)
3) Too much investment for so much loss of stats(no armor, no eShield)
4) Gimmicky keystone which is basically like +20% evasion

Reasons why it removes armor and Eshield:
1) Evasion + Eshield stacking would make incredibly tanky characters
2) Evasion + armor stacking would make incredibly tanky characters
3) If it did not remove this, it would be mandatory for every Choas Innoculation build, essentially zero negative side effects, which there should always be.
4) Iron reflexes would be god status with 30/20% avoidance(which would defeat the purpose of Iron Reflexes)

Theres a bit more, but I think most people get the point.

What is its purpose within the game?
1) Clearly is designed to allow avoidance characters to be more viable
2) Meant to reward evasion builds which wear gear with no energy shield, or armor on them
3) Probably the only way to get spell avoidance without getting shield + specialized shield talents

What was it probably not meant for?
1) people who do not use evasion mechanics(ei: shouldnt be a freebie 30% dodge for characters that stack energy shield, or armor, or both. This would be overpowered)
2) Chaos Innoculation synergy would be through the roof on pure energy shield stacking
3) Free spell avoidance without sacrifice

We can fix everything via evasion chance, which is the abilities primary purpose.

Acrobatics: Every time you evade an incoming attack, you gain a 3% increased chance to dodge attacks and a 2% increased chance to avoid incoming spells, stacking up to 10 times. Each stack removes 10% total armor and 5% total energy shield. Lasts for "X" seconds.

So, how does this impact the game?

**I personally feel Chaos Innoculation and Iron Reflexes are the only reason this keystone removes armor and energy shield at all. However, by using this new method, Iron Reflexes and CI E-Shield stacking would be unable to get beneficial stacks since their evasion chance would be zero or close to zero**

0) How would it impact a character already using pure evasion gear, to maximize benefit from the keystones at the moment? Currently, a character geared just for this, would see no increase in benefits, in fact they would lose their initial 30/20% avoidance at the start of fights. However, they would have 5 extra Skill Tree points to spend, which I doubt they would be against.

Also someone with only evasion equipment, would be able to reach max stacks very very quickly. Additionally many people only get the 1 point for 20% dodge, those who did, would now be granted 10% more possible dodge, and 20% spell dodge. Making their build point for point, more powerful.

1) Its 1 keystone, less investment needed. Easier access to spell avoidance

2) Character builds that do not rely on evasion, will not be able to stack the benefit of the ability as quickly(perhaps in some cases, at all). So it wouldn't be a freebie skill for every CI/Armor build.

3) Characters with low evasion, can use arrow dodging to increase the chances of proccing this effect. So it would have some utility with casters/ranged characters.

4) The negative effects of the ability will introduce themselves along side the positives. This decreases the chance of walking into a boss and getting exploded. You can also retreat and allow the stacks to wear off, before engaging again. This allows a bit of play style freedom, as well as equipment changes.(It would be possible to say, against brutus, put on armor/eShield gear and tank him straight up).

5)Chaos Innoculation would still be possible, however, risky. Without proper avoidance, CI would be incredibly dangerous, due to 50% reduction in energy shield at full stacks.

6) If some sweet piece of Evasion/EShield gear comes your way, you could wear it with confidence. This allows some extra freedom in gear choices, without having to have a unusable stat

7) Eldrich Battery synergy could be pretty awesome. You would have maximum mana bonus before the fight to set up, then as the stacks build, your extra mana pool would deplete by up to 50%. While not 100% efficient, it still allows utility from that keystone.


**EXTRA TWEAKING POSSIBLE**
Pretty easy to play around with the numbers, armor removal, energy sheild removal, duration, increased/reduced benefit %'s.

ie:
1) Could have it remove up to 50% armor instead, making armor/evasion gear possible as well.

Note: Iron reflexes would still be pretty OP with this, however, with 0 evasion, I do not think you could ever get an acrobatic stack, making it non-viable


-Trenan

acrobatics is good as it is

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narutoganjahbrony wrote:

acrobatics is good as it is

Well, I guess I will just take your word for it. Seeing as you have provided us with such detailed information and statistics.

I guess my 32% dual wield block, 60% evasion, 26% dodge, max resist Duelist with +hp on every item was meant to be obliterated by every hard hitting mob in the game(before even reaching merciless mind you). Working as intended indeed. I obviously must have overlooked some valuable piece of surviveability in my build. Clearly the +hp/+hp% nodes and life leech/life on hit skill tree points/gems I grabbed at every chance were the wrong way to go.

/thread imo

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trenan wrote:

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narutoganjahbrony wrote:

acrobatics is good as it is

Well, I guess I will just take your word for it. Seeing as you have provided us with such detailed information and statistics.

I guess my 32% dual wield block, 60% evasion, 26% dodge, max resist Duelist with +hp on every item was meant to be obliterated by every hard hitting mob in the game(before even reaching merciless mind you). Working as intended indeed. I obviously must have overlooked some valuable piece of surviveability in my build. Clearly the +hp/+hp% nodes and life leech/life on hit skill tree points/gems I grabbed at every chance were the wrong way to go.

/thread imo

That's pretty crazy. I ran my templar through cruel today with very low armor (150), no cold or fire resist, and no block chance (using a bow). I did fine (killed piety at 48). Mind posting your build, or your maximum hitpoints?

Maybe it's melee that's the problem and not acrobatics.

Current Build: There are some easy access Hp nodes I will get immediatly after finishing the acrobatics area, acrobatics was grabbed sooner because I wanted to test it.

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgQBBLEFLQW1EiAUUh3KIWAotSjbLOkwfDSTQKBHfkp9TGBRR1PfVvpY216LYEtjcGVNZ6Bqk25pdEF07XTxd9d6738rhNmE74d2jb-QCpkrm4Oeub6nwA_EuMaiypDM28_40k3UI9Xt1fjWit0N3ajf7-sU707v4_zF

currently Level 50. I can push my HP to like 1500 with current gear. Also it is very hard to find new gear, since anything other than pure evasion is a waste. I wouldn't wear a piece with shield or armor on it, unless it was amazingly good. This reduces my odds of finding an upgrade substantially

I realize with a little more time, when i get the extra HP it will make it better. I do quite well with most things, currently in Act 3 Cruel, but if a hard hitting mob fights me, or a boss. I can easily be 1 shotted. The flicker discharge guys int he sewers evaporate me like nothing.

Sure acrobatics is less of a pain to ranged characters, but it has much appeal to melee evasion builds as well.

The whole point of my build was to create an avoidance character.

I will eventually end up with:

45% dual wield block
75%+ evasion
150% ranged evasion
30% dodge
20% spell dodge
160% (roughly) increased maximum life

This is the appeal of the build, on paper it seems like you you will rarely be touched. However mobs hit me with ease, I believe this is due to the evasion mechanic calculating in "smoothing" so that its not completely random. If cruel mobs are doings this much damage, i expect merciless to be much worse.

I am not sure if others have taken an avoidance build to this extreme, but others who have used acrobatics are very disappointed with its value. It can easily be changed to be more flexible, and allow more viability without changing what its original concept was. If i had them 5 extra points for HP nodes, maybe I wouldn't get 1 shot by a boss? There is also the issue of not being able to use Granite Flasks. I could probably do much better if those worked, sadly they do not.

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trenan wrote:

Major complaints:
1) Its basically just extra evasion, on a different roll
2) 1 shots still exist due to no armor, no EShield(and to the whole evasion mechanic allowing hits in via smoothing)
3) Too much investment for so much loss of stats(no armor, no eShield)
4) Gimmicky keystone which is basically like +20% evasion

When I see this many problems, I don't think "hey, let's fix it!"

I think "Let's kill it with fire."

I suggest Acrobatics be utterly scrapped and replaced with... I don't know, and I don't really care. Just get rid of it.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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trenan wrote:

Major complaints:
1) Its basically just extra evasion, on a different roll
2) 1 shots still exist due to no armor, no EShield(and to the whole evasion mechanic allowing hits in via smoothing)
3) Too much investment for so much loss of stats(no armor, no eShield)
4) Gimmicky keystone which is basically like +20% evasion

When I see this many problems, I don't think "hey, let's fix it!"

I think "Let's kill it with fire."

I suggest Acrobatics be utterly scrapped and replaced with... I don't know, and I don't really care. Just get rid of it.

considering it can become viable and synergetic with so many things with only a very minor tweak, why scrap it?

It clearly exists for the creation of avoidance characters, something I wanted to try and make before I even knew there was an acrobatics.

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trenan wrote:

considering it can become viable and synergetic with so many things with only a very minor tweak, why scrap it?

It clearly exists for the creation of avoidance characters, something I wanted to try and make before I even knew there was an acrobatics.

Dodge triggers if evasion fails. Therefore, the more evasion you have, the less often dodge triggers. Look up "synergy" in a thesaurus and find an antonym.

A much better keystone would be:
Whenever you evade or block an attack, you gain an endurance charge.
Whenever you take damage, you lose all endurance charges.

That would at least help with evasion's one-shot issues. However, I'm pretty sure that proposed keystone isn't good enough to make it into the game. Yours definitely isn't, and I have no idea how Acrobatics made it in in the first place, because it definitely doesn't deserve it.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

A much better keystone would be:
Whenever you evade or block an attack, you gain an endurance charge.
Whenever you take damage, you lose all endurance charges.

No offense, but that's even worse than acrobatics. Sure, it's annoying to accumulate endurance charges, but it's not hard. That keystone would make it a nightmare, it would be way easier just to use enduring cry. Now if there were a keystone that reduced the next incoming hit to (.95^n) where n is the number of previously dodged attacks... that might be useful.




The role of acrobatics is to create a very niche tank build, really only good lategame. If your build normally would have gotten zero energy shield and zero armor anyways, acrobatics increases effective hitpoints by 20% (30% vs physical). That's pretty fucking strong. The only problem is you need a hitpoint pool of about 6000 to reliably mitigate damage.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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trenan wrote:

considering it can become viable and synergetic with so many things with only a very minor tweak, why scrap it?

It clearly exists for the creation of avoidance characters, something I wanted to try and make before I even knew there was an acrobatics.

Dodge triggers if evasion fails. Therefore, the more evasion you have, the less often dodge triggers. Look up "synergy" in a thesaurus and find an antonym.

A much better keystone would be:
Whenever you evade or block an attack, you gain an endurance charge.
Whenever you take damage, you lose all endurance charges.

That would at least help with evasion's one-shot issues. However, I'm pretty sure that proposed keystone isn't good enough to make it into the game. Yours definitely isn't, and I have no idea how Acrobatics made it in in the first place, because it definitely doesn't deserve it.

Last I checked, "so many things" isn't just evasion(and since I pointed them out in my original post, I can tell you do not bother reading things). This applies to chaos innoculation, eldritch battery, arrow dodging, evasion/armor gear, evasion/energy shield gear. All things which are made completely unusable by the current incarnation of the ability(exluding arrow dodging). It would also work well with energy shield recharge, as it maybe be possible to have it recharge while still fighting assuming you have avoided damage for long enough.

Also, it does synergize with evasion, since they are on seperate rolls. Dodge is a flat % check, and evasion is done via accuracy to evasion comparison, which also has smoothing in to allow hits to seep through. Dodge can pick up the hits that creep through the evasion, increasing the overall chance you would not be hit.

If the goal is to have an attack miss you, the synergy between them is incredibly high.

Your idea now where even resembles the original intent of the keystone. I suggest you try again, instead of giving a sub par idea, which can already be done via enduring cry and warlords mark, with the difference being you get to keep them pretty much forever. Why would an avoidance build utilize an ability designed to reduce damage? There should be an inherent risk in taking big damage if for some reason the attack makes it through.